Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/137

 opinion, in which Croker was not singular even then, that, however charming as an historical romance, Macaulay's work ‘will never be quoted as authority on any question or point in the history of England.’ It is a striking corroboration of this view that Sir James Stephen, after undertaking to review the book in the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ abandoned his intention, ‘because it was, in truth, not what it professed to be—a history—but an historical novel.’ Macaulay himself said of Croker's article that it was ‘written with so much rancour as to make everybody sick.’ It is impossible, in justice to Croker, not to advert to the attacks upon him, not only by Macaulay, but also by his biographer, and to indicate that there is another side to the question than that which they have been at great pains to present. Croker continued to enjoy the friendship and the confidence of many of the best and ablest men of his time. The infirmities of age, and a feeling that ‘he was out of date, at least out of season,’ made him withdraw in 1854 from his active connection with the ‘Quarterly Review.’ Literature, however, continued to be to the last his chief occupation and enjoyment. He had long meditated an edition of Pope, and his later years were spent in accumulating materials for this, which he was himself unable to use, but which have been turned to account by Mr. Whitwell Elwin and Mr. Courthope. These years were full of suffering, but Croker found solace in the work, which had become a necessity of his life. ‘Though death,’ says his biographer, Mr. Jennings, ‘was constantly within sight, he did not fear it, or allow it in any way to interfere with the performance of the daily duties which he prescribed for himself.’ The first serious symptoms of his malady—disease of the heart—appeared in 1850, and he was liable to fainting fits, sometimes as many as twelve or fourteen in a day. His pulse was seldom above thirty, and often fell to twenty-three, and acute neuralgia frequently aggravated his sufferings. ‘His patience,’ says Lady Barrow, the amanuensis of his later years, who was with him to his death, ‘never failed.’ His love for his family and his friends was something wonderful. His general health was good, and his brain as active and acute as ever. Thus, till the last day of his life (10 Aug. 1857), he kept up his wide correspondence, and he even worked all that day at his notes on Pope. As he was being put into bed by his servant he fell back dead, exclaiming ‘O Wade!’ passing away, says his biographer, ‘in the manner which he had always desired—surrounded by those whom he loved the best, and yet spared the pain of protracted parting and farewells. In this hope he died as he had lived.’ Ample materials for forming an estimate of Croker are to be found in the three volumes of his ‘Memoirs, Diaries, and Correspondence,’ edited by Louis J. Jennings, published in 1884. He was manifestly a man of strict honour, of high principle, of upright life, of great courage, of untiring industry, devoted with singleness of heart to the interests of his country, a loyal friend, and in his domestic relations unexceptionable. Living in the days when party rancour raged, prominent as a speaker in parliament, and wielding a trenchant and too often personally aggressive pen in the leading organ of the tory party, he came in for a very large share of the misrepresentation which always pursues political partisans. His literary tastes were far from catholic in their range, and he made himself obnoxious to the newer school by the dogmatic and narrow spirit and the sarcastic bitterness which are apt to be the sins that more easily beset the self-constituted and anonymous critics of a leading review. Thus to political adversaries he added many an enemy in the field of literature. As he never replied to any attack, however libellous, it became the practice among a certain class of writers to accuse him of heartlessness and malignity. Only once did he reply to such accusations, and then he showed how much his enemies probably owed to his forbearance. His assailant in this case was Lord John Russell, who, stung by a severe censure, in a review by Croker of Lord John's edition of Moore's ‘Diaries,’ of the disregard of private feeling and good taste shown in the editing of the book, attacked Croker in a note to one of the volumes, impugning his moral character and personal honour, and charging him with using the fact that Moore had been a former friend and was now dead, ‘to give additional zest to the pleasure of a safe malignity.’ A correspondence in the ‘Times’ ensued, in which Croker completely turned the tables upon his assailant. That Croker had serious faults of temper and manner cannot, however, be denied. ‘To strangers, or towards persons whom he disliked,’ says Mr. Jennings, ‘his manner was often overbearing and harsh.’ He was, especially in his latter days, impatient of contradiction, and somewhat given to self-assertion. But no man was more thoroughly trusted by his friends or loved them more truly. Those who knew him best ‘never wavered in their attachment to him,’ says Mr. Jennings. ‘Every one who had more than a superficial acquaintance with him was well aware that he had done a thousand kindly acts, some of them